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Theater Talkback: Are Musicals Losing Their Voices?

By Charles Isherwood April 14, 2011 1:20 pmApril 14, 2011 1:20 pm

Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe cast of the New York Philharmonic’s production of “Company.”

“We didn’t need dialogue! We had faces!” The famous lines spoken by Gloria Swanson’s decrepit silent-movie goddess Norma Desmond sprang to mind the other night at Avery Fisher Hall during the New York Philharmonic’s concert version of “Company.” I imagined there might be a few old-time Broadway performers in the audience muttering similar sentiments to themselves as they watched Lonny Price’s vocally vacuous presentation of the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical. “Back in my day, we had voices!” I could picture one seething through his or her teeth to a colleague at intermission.

Patti LuPone’s powerhouse, this-is-how-it’s-done-kids performance of her big solo, the show’s celebrated “Ladies Who Lunch,” seemed infused with determination to give the aficionados of full-throttle Broadway vocalizing something to cheer about. For much of the rest of the evening, accomplished singing was all but absent, a particular oddity in a production backed by the full forces of a world-class orchestra.

Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesCatherine Zeta-Jones in the 2009 Broadway production of “A Little Night Music.”

The cast of Mr. Price’s concert staging featured television actors in many of the parts: Neil Patrick Harris (“How I Met Your Mother”) in the central role — or should I say centrifugal role? — of the eternal bachelor Bobby, as well as Stephen Colbert, Christina Hendricks of “Mad Men” and Jon Cryer of the hugely popular “Two and a Half Men.” Resourceful comic actors and likable personalities, they all made appealing contributions to the evening, but brilliant singing was not among them.

Mr. Harris is not a stage neophyte. He played a lead role in “Rent” and previously appeared as Tobias in a Philharmonic concert presentation of Mr. Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd.” He is a competent singer with a nice voice. But the show’s clarion anthem “Being Alive” was underpowered, and didn’t really bring the evening to a rousing emotional climax, as ideally it should. (And certainly did when Raul Esparza played the role in the last Broadway revival.) Ms. Hendricks was a perfect delight in her book scenes as the daffy flight attendant April, but her thin, breathy singing in “Barcelona” — hardly a song that requires operatic agility, true — was nevertheless disappointing. Of Mr. Colbert’s few bars of solo vocalizing, the less said the better.

Are we entering an age when being able to sing to a high standard is no longer a requirement for making appearances in even first-class musical theater productions? The unhappy answer is probably yes. The casting of movie stars has been de rigueur for revivals of classic plays for some time now on Broadway, but in the past couple of seasons we’ve seen the trend encroaching on musical theater terrain, too.

Catherine Zeta-Jones won the Tony last season for her performance in “A Little Night Music.” Ms. Zeta-Jones, like Mr. Harris, is not without a certain basic level of singing skill, but her rendition of the show’s immortal “Send in the Clowns” lacked the delicacy and emotional truth that Bernadette Peters, with her decades of musical theater experience, brought to the song when she took over the role. In the same season, the central role in the revival of “Promises, Promises” was played by Sean Hayes, a star of the television series “Will and Grace.” Mr. Hayes’s preparation for the role was clearly evident in his carefully tended vibrato, but there is a difference between a well-drilled student and a naturally gifted musical performer.

Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDaniel Radcliffe as J. Pierrepont Finch in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”

This spring a new revival of Frank Loesser’s “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” was built to showcase a powerhouse movie star: Daniel Radcliffe, the post-boyish star of the Harry Potter movies. Mr. Radcliffe, too, certainly does not embarrass himself as the enterprising J. Pierrepont Finch, the conniving white-collar mini-Machiavelli in this peppy 1960s musical. But his light, reedy voice lacks the zest and heft that can turn Loesser’s songs into occasions. In Mr. Radcliffe’s interpretation the big Act 2 solo, “I Believe in You,” seemed to be over before it had begun. (The Encores! revival of a lesser Loesser show, “Where’s Charley?” was ultimately far more enjoyable, built as it was to showcase a cast of unfamous but vocally gifted performers.)

Certainly the history of the Broadway musical includes shows that have been built around stars with minimal singing talent: Lauren Bacall in “Applause” and “Woman of the Year,” Katharine Hepburn in “Coco.” One of the most beloved musicals of the 20th century, “My Fair Lady,” was tailored for the modest singing abilities of Rex Harrison. And the advent of amplification certainly didn’t help matters.

But if current trends continue, one of the signal pleasures of the Broadway musical, the irreplaceable excitement of hearing a truly gifted singer interpreting some of the greatest American popular music ever written, may fade away entirely. The current generation of musical theater luminaries who have headlined major new musicals or revivals – Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Kelli O’Hara, Mr. Esparza, Brian Stokes Mitchell among them – could prove to be the last. That’s an infinitely dispiriting thought when I recall how much heady musical rapture they have brought to theatergoers over the past decade or so.

My purpose is not to dismiss the talents of the television and movie exiles who certainly deserve credit for undertaking the considerable challenge of appearing in a Broadway musical. But beautiful singing voices are rare and particular gifts, and musically exciting performances are among the vital elements that contributed to the growth and power of the American musical as a mass art form.

At a time when the hugely popular “American Idol” has enshrined a fine voice (of a particular flamboyant kind, it’s true) as a prize-worthy endowment worthy of national celebration, it seems a dismaying irony that Broadway should be moving in the other direction, relegating the possession of a solid singing voice into the optional category, several notches below celebrity on the list of necessary requirements.